Why Ukraine Matters
Ukraine sits at the epicenter of an increasingly contentious geopolitical situation with Russia. Vladimir Putin senses weakness in the west and is using Ukraine as a proxy to explore just how far Joe Biden’s historically unpopular administration can be pushed.
While the majority of Americans don’t want to send American soldiers to fight the Russians over Ukraine, we must understand that the Russians will not stop at Ukraine. Let me explain:
Sorry to break from the neoCon narrative...BUT, I could not care less if Putin absorbs the eastern provinces of Ukraine to get Russia’s bridge to Crimea (which had been part of Russia dating back to Catherine the Great, and, is majority Russian population which wants back into Russia). He will not try to take over Kiev.
I hope we are not seeing a Biden Wag the Dog distraction away from his disastrous domestic dilemma.
Weakness invites aggression. Do we really think Russia would be doing this if Trump were in office?
Russia, Erick, is a gas station with nuclear weapons, not a true diversified economy as people normally understand the term. Biden managed to strengthen Putin's hand by lifting the sanctions on the Nordstream 2 pipeline, killing off the Keystone XL pipeline, and effectively ending fracking on Federal lands in the name of "climate change", thus destroying our newfound energy independence and status as a net exporter of energy.
You are right about the Crimea; few people realize the fact that Russia has exactly THREE ports outside of the Crimea which it can use year-round: Murmansk and Archangel in the far north, which require icebreakers for winter use, and Vladivostok in Eastern Siberia on the Pacific. That's why Putin has tried in the past to make nice to Vietnam for the use of Cam Ranh Bay and the Syrian ports of Baniyas, Jablah, Latakia, and Tartus. Since the days of the czars, Russia has been a nation in search of ice-free ports. That's why Sevastopol in the Crimea matters, and why it's trying to kiss up to Turkey; so long as the Turks stay in any way tied to the West, Russia's access to the Mediterranean is endangered; the Bosporus and the Dardanelles can easily be blocked, trapping the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Putin would really be upset were Turkey to join the European Union, but that won't happen under Erdogan.
There is one overarching reason why Russia, as the USSR before it, wants that sphere of influence in Eastern Europe which you overlook; Germany. The Germans invaded Russia twice in the 20th Century, one in each world war; the second one from 1941-1945 cost it 30 million dead. That's why the USSR, and now Putin's Russia, wants Eastern Europe - as a buffer zone against Germany. I guarantee you that the alarm bells began ringing and the red lights began flashing the day in 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell. NATO's expansion eastward has rekindled memories of the Cold War and the Western strategy of "containment" in which George Kennan envisioned the USSR surrounded by western allies. A Ukraine in NATO and the EU would put Western allies further eastward than Moscow, and Putin isn't about to countenance a de facto encirclement. That expansion of NATO is a bridge too far, IMO.
Fortunately, Russia's economic and political weakness makes it easy to deter it. While it may grab Ukraine and install essentially a puppet government there, the Ukrainians will make them pay a steep butcher's bill for it, and IF (a big if) Biden can manage to get the EU to cooperate in broad based sanctions against Putin, he may decide that the price is just too high. The real problem is that Biden's actions I listed above have managed to make Western Europe far too dependent on Russian energy for us to rely on it for any real help here.
My final guess: Putin wins, Ukraine loses - but not before it makes Russia bleed heavily.